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Have you ever wondered about how narwhal tastes different from beluga? Now you can learn about this and more through interviews with Inuit hunters. And you don’t even have to know Inuktitut. With a new feature released by the Exchange for Local Observations and Knowledge for the Arctic (ELOKA) team, the English translations of many interviews with Inuit elders and hunters are integrated alongside the video presentation. These interviews highlight the research conducted by the Narwhal Tusk Research Project in Baffin Bay.

The ability to view data interactively adds convenience to dynamic data analysis. While static graphs and images are informative, interactive tools allow users to view and analyze data on-the-fly. Readers of our Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis blog enjoy daily updates on sea ice extent, but some wanted to see data from specific days or years that weren’t provided in the static graphs. Behold Charctic.

The Exchange for Local Observations and Knowledge of the Arctic (ELOKA) Web site, hosted by NSIDC, has been reformatted and updated for easier navigation. The home page now has a rolling image gallery as well as featured interviews with elders, featured data and background imagery of Arctic landscapes. Check it out at http://eloka-arctic.org.

ELOKA facilitates the collection, preservation, exchange, and use of local observations and knowledge of the Arctic. ELOKA provides data management and user support, and fosters collaboration between resident Arctic experts and visiting researchers.

NSIDC now offers a new Web site, Satellite Observations of Arctic Change (SOAC) with interactive maps of the Arctic based on NASA satellite and related data. The site allows users to explore how conditions in the Arctic have changed over time. SOAC is available at http://nsidc.org/soac.

This sample image from Satellite Observations of Arctic Change shows near-surface air temperature anomalies for October 2012, along with a bar chart of anomalies over time.

Users may animate a time series, zoom in or out, and view a bar graph of anomalies over time. Links to the source data and documentation are also included. Additional pages provide brief scientific discussion, and overviews of the scientific importance of these data.

More data types and extended temporal coverage may be added in the future, if interest warrants and funding continues. SOAC was developed with support from NASA Earth Science (http://science.nasa.gov/earth-science/).

Back in the 1960s, technology to process massive amounts of data and imagery did not exist. Advancements in technology now allow for the processing of film into a digital format. The Nimbus Data Rescue Project set out on a techno-archeological mission to convert data and images from the NASA Nimbus 1 and 2 satellites that were developed on film into a more manageable digital format. These data extend the satellite record back in time providing the earliest satellite data of polar sea ice extent.

The Nimbus Advanced Vidicon Camera System Visible Imagery L1, HDF5(NmAVCS1H) is the first data set publicly available from the Nimbus Data Rescue Project. NmAVCS1H consists of black-and-white Advanced Vidicon Camera System (AVCS) images that were acquired by the Nimbus 1 satellite during September 1964 and by Nimbus 2 from May to August 1966. NSIDC researchers and staff scanned the images from archival rolls of 35-mm, black-and-white film. Each HDF5-formatted data file contains an array of 8-bit grayscale values, estimates of the latitude and longitude for each pixel, a grayscale calibration map, and a non-data/data quality mask. Browse images are also available.